Behind The Curtain
by wikiaddicted723
Summary: The reunion we all want to see. Post 4x15  therefore AU . Is there still a home to go back to?


A/N: There really is no plot to this. Just imagine we've already seen 4.15 and that this is what comes after. Remember to leave me a thought XD Also, CHILDREN, KEEP OUT.

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><p>" Are you sure you're ok?" Peter asks for the hundredth time that evening, his still – hoarse voice resonating in the mostly empty spaces of her living room. She'd insisted on his presence, fearing that letting him out of her sight for more than a moment might make him disappear. Fearing that it might make <em>her<em> disappear.

"Yeah…" She answers, her head resting against the jamb of her bedroom's door, her figure slumped with exhaustion, her coat already strewn haphazardly across the back of her couch, her hair a mess of grime and matted blood from her admittedly minor injuries. Most of it isn't hers anyway, "…I'm fine."

They both know that she lies, they both understand that "I'm fine" means that she's not, that she doesn't think she'll be alright for some time, that she wishes it wouldn't hurt as much to know that the closest thing she had to a mother for most of her life was replaced without her noticing (even if the memories of those times remain hazy, stuck in the back of her mind in a shapeless sprawl, like half-baked clay), she wishes it wouldn't hurt as much to learn that her life is only as proportionally important as the outcome of an experiment, that her sole value lies in the liquid power cursing through her veins, dormant in the molecular structure of her cells. She thought she'd gone over this already, years ago, but it seems some hurts just lie in waiting, until the time is right to make themselves known once more.

He doesn't know if the blatant lie annoys him or makes him love her more, he's not sure that would be possible. He raises an eyebrow; she ignores him with a small upward pull of her lips, not quite a smile.

"I should be the one asking you that," Olivia says, her voice soft, her eyes molten. After all, he's the one that jumped into the wreckage of a dying Observer's mind in hopes of finding her not eight hours ago, risking death, an overdose or madness.

She can see the after effects of his recklessness: his unsteady hands, his still too – wide pupils in the watery depths of his irises and the purple - black smudges underneath them, his chapped lips and the echoes of despair still etched across his brow, the ghostly pallor of his skin standing in stark contrast with the sweat – and – soot darkened would -be curls of his hair, and the untended scruff on his cheeks. He looks like the living dead, or the recently deceased.

He huffs a laugh, the lines around his eyes deepening in wake of his smile as he closes the distance between them, mirroring her position with his tired grace, crowding her space. It is, strangely, the most comfortable she's ever been.

Peter fixes his eyes on her, the wonder blatant in the blue-dyed storm of his gaze. He still glimmers a little, the Cortexiphan in her system not quite gone. It gives an ethereal quality to his presence, a Technicolor tinge to the depth of his stare.

It hasn't quite hit her, everything that's happened, everything they've been through - unknowingly – these past three months, like a hazy dream in the face of the recently recovered memories of a life she almost lost. All she knows is that he's here, with her. Be it by design or the cosmic ripples of long – ago decisions in alternate realties, to Olivia, his presence, solid and vibrating in her arms, his breath heavy on her neck as he nuzzles her throat and the side of her jaw with a peppering of lazy kisses, is all that matters.

"I'm ok," he whispers against her skin, his arms having sneaked around her waist to press her to his chest, "…I feel like I could sleep for a week, though," there's drunken laughter in his voice, a giddiness that betrays his unabated fears, his still existing doubts.

Olivia doesn't hold it against him, understands. She knows what it feels like, to have your whole world, or what you believed it to be, turned on its head and folded backwards before being forced to watch it burn to the ground, until its ashes are fine enough to escape through your fingers. The universe, it seems, forgot how to do things half way where they're concerned.

So she hugs him to her in turn, her chin firm against the hollow of his shoulder, tightening her grasp on the strung-out muscles of his back as her fingers dig into the fabric of his shirt, the blue one she last saw him with, bearing witness to his relentless focus on her search, his dogged endurance against the threats to her well being.

It fills her with sadness that she can't explain (like the missing pieces to a puzzle that escapes the finality of memory, hanging in the limbo of remembrance with fuzzy faces and half-formed words), to learn of his suffering at her unwitting hands, to have stood idly by with little more than reluctant wonder at his pain.

She feels him sway on his feet, one of his hands flying to the doorjamb to keep himself from falling in a too – slow reflex, one more vestige of his part in their present ordeal. Olivia helps him hold his weight upright with her own, sneaking a look at his face as he blinks himself awake with a shake of his head.

"Sorry," Peter mutters and she smiles, grabbing the hand still pressed against the dip of her back in her own and weaving his fingers with hers before pulling him forward into the shadows of the room.

She shakes her head at his apology; she's as tired as he, for reasons of her own but equally as valid. There's this bones – deep ache settling in, warm in light of his presence but relentless in its assault. She could sleep too, and maybe meet him in her dreams.

Olivia watches him strip down to his boxers, his movements slightly uncoordinated, her eyes glued to every piece of skin that he slowly makes available to her gaze, and she wants to run her hands through every surface of his figure, memorize his shape by touch, if only to make certain that when they meet the apocalypse head on (as they no doubt will, sooner rather than later) she has touched him everywhere as thoroughly as he has her, at least this once. But sleep calls, and he's dead on his feet, and her eyes refuse to stay open in the half-light of the room.

He hugs her to him, when she's changed into something not covered in sweat and blood, and slipped beneath her sheets, settling her aching shape beside his own.

"There's no place like home," he whispers, his breath a caress on her lips as she faces him, unwilling to relinquish the sight of him for the comfort of his chest against her back as the lines of ever-present tension leave his face, and he lets sleep consume the remnants of his thoughts.

Olivia smiles, in the dark, and holds on to him.

_It feels normal_, she thinks, _this feels normal_. Vortexes and brain transfers and alternate timelines, doppelgangers and hive minds, parallel universes and shapeshifters, and the rest of a plethora of sci-fi themed monstrosities, that is what their lives have become. She wonders why it doesn't bother her more, why she knows with every certainty she has that she'd do it all again, if it would serve to keep him here, breathing evenly across from her in his sleep, his arms warm and solid around her waist, his presence a certainty instead of merely a wish.

It's her last thought, before sleep takes her.

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><p>The sheets are still warm when she slips back into bed, the ends of her hair wet with water from the shower she has just taken, having been unable to stay in bed with crusted blood and ash itching on her skin.<p>

Peter grumbles at the movement in his sleep, but does not wake, the warm light of late morning seeping through her curtains highlighting the russet – and – gold of the scruff across his cheeks, and defining the shape of his too – long eyelashes against the sharp arch of his cheekbones. He looks impossibly young, unburdened, almost peaceful, and she's reminded of the many reasons she loves waking by his side, in his arms.

Olivia has always prided herself in being independent, her own person, her own woman, but if, at the end of it all, she were to be judged and defined by having met him, leaned on him, and loved him with everything she is, she doesn't think she'd mind.

She presses herself closer to him, weaving her leg between his own, placing her palms on the warm surface of his chest, running her fingers through the light dusting of hair that meets her there. His heartbeat is steady against her skin, certain, unbent, powerful, and it wakes a hunger in her that wasn't quite asleep. She wants him, plain and simple. She's intent on letting him know.

Olivia brings her mouth to his neck, attacking his pulse with open-mouthed kisses and the occasional brush of her tongue against the salt of his skin, feeling him hum in his sleep as she drags her short –but – sharp nails down his chest, across his nipples and the baby-soft skin of his belly, making lazy circles on his hipbones with her fingertips as she bites softly on his Adam's apple, the hollow of his throat, his sternum.

He twitches, as if electrified, and wakes with a start, his hands coming to clutch blindly at her waist.

" 'Livia?" he asks, his voice laced with sleep, confusion, and lust and, faintly, disbelief. She hums in response, wanting to assure him of her reality, of his place in this moment and her life, nuzzling his chest as she slips one of her hands into the navy fabric of his boxer shorts, finding him half hard against her palm.

He grunts against her ear and she circles his erection, her touch soft yet firm as she pumps him slowly, from base to tip and back down in a rhythm familiar only to them, until he's rocking his hips almost unperceptively against her hand, his own fingers cupping the aching flesh of her breasts, teasing and massaging, his mouth now at work on her jaw, his tongue laving the spot below her ear that makes her clench her hand tight around him, eliciting a guttural moan from his throat.

"Olivia," he tries in fits and starts "stop, if you don't want this to be over," he pants against her temples, pleading, "please…"

She releases him, runs her thumb in insistent circles across his head until he bites her earlobe in warning, fully caught up with her mood. He uses the leverage of his weight then, and rolls them over until he lies between her thighs, her back firmly pressed against the mattress, her hands held by his own above her head. Olivia smiles and looks up at him through lazy eyelids, relishing in the safety of his weight on hers, and the feel of his skin pressed seamlessly against her own.

"Good morning," she whispers against his lips as he rubs her nose with his own, his eyes hazy and unfocused and so deep she fears she might drown in them. Peter lowers himself, resting most of his weight on her as he captures her lips with his own, releasing one of her hands to cup her face and weave his fingers through her still-wet hair, tracing the plump flesh of her lips with his tongue like a man possessed. He's missed this. Above all, he's missed _her_.

"_Very_," he replies, his voice rough and low, a glint in the ink of his pupils that she hasn't seen in a while, perhaps ever since that interrupted morning before the end of the world. She laughs lightly in response, bringing her free hand to press against the dip of his buttocks as he rocks against her, his boxers still in place, teasing her, teasing himself.

He closes his eyes, resting his forehead against hers as she starts meeting his motion, wrapping one of her legs around the back of his, pressing her center against him with a low hum. He moves downwards, after a while, replacing his hands with his mouth on her breasts, nipping and sucking and kissing until she's positively vibrating beneath him, scratching his scalp with the hand he has let free from his hold.

It's only when he attempts to move even lower, gracing every inch of her lower belly with the scorching warmth of his tongue, that her grasp on his head turns insistent, as does her voice.

"Peter, come back up here," she says, nay commands, with a breathless whisper and a tug of her fingers on his hair, and he has no choice but obey. He's really not complaining.

She kisses him breathless, her hand holding him close by the back of his neck before running down his back to divest him of his shorts, pulling them down until he can kick them off the bed and settle between her legs, his throbbing length firm against her thigh.

"What happened to sleeping for a week?" she murmurs with a puff of hot air against his neck, and he can feel the smile in her voice. He bites down on her shoulder, his form shaking with something more akin to relief than to laughter. God, he's missed her.

"I'm still not sure this isn't a dream I'm going to wake up from any minute," he says, his voice raw and serious as he loses himself in the gold-streaked green of her eyes. She smiles softly at him, the grasp of her hand turned a caress as she rubs the thumb of the hand that lies woven with his across the back of his palm, seeking to reassure him.

"Would that be so bad?" she asks, mystified by his expression, her hand restless as it moves across his back, his chest, finally coming down to stroke him lightly where he rests, between her legs. He groans.

"It's not the dream that's the problem, 'Livia," he says, his ink and ocean eyes sad amid the circle of raging fire that surrounds them, his hand holding hers tight against the pillow, "It's having to wake up after, and seeing you look at me like I'm a stranger… I - " He chokes a little, and she stops his words with her mouth, swallowing the sound of his pain and making it her own until it floods her, fills her being and goes on its way, like a river passing through.

"Hush," she says, "You're not dreaming, Peter, I promise," she never breaks her promises, that much he knows. With that, she tilts her hips and wraps her legs around his waist, her hand curled tight on his back. He doesn't need to be asked twice.

He enters her slowly, capturing her soft gasp with his mouth as she grabs his buttocks to pull him deeper inside, clenching around him as if to show him that this is, in fact, real. He answers with a groan of his own against her temple, and withdraws.

She lets him set the pace, understanding that he needs this much more than she could have imagined, the sheer adoration in the back of his eyes both scaring her and amplifying her want in equal measure. He's paradoxical, and perhaps she loves that about him almost as much as she loves everything else.

He loves her slowly, relishing in the feel of her as she envelopes him both inside and outside, her limbs tight around him, like ivy, her head sunk down into the pillow with the force of her pleasure, the rocking of their hips half a beat slower than the even tempo of their hearts. He has all the time in the world, behind that door, beneath these sheets, and he intends to use it well.

Peter hitches her legs higher up on his back, changing the angle, making her gasp out loud and press her crescent nails tighter against his spine as he increases their speed but a fraction, thrusting deeper, stronger, coasting over that spot he knows will drive her crazy.

She can feel the seamless seal of their bodies grow tighter with every snap of his hips, droplets of his sweat falling on her forehead and chest, and mingling with her own to drown in her hair and the fabric of the sheets on her bed.

She's gasping now, as loud as she ever does (which, admittedly, isn't much), her voice in his ear before her head falls back and she starts to arch against him, and she can't, she can't let go before he's ready to meet her when he's the one with the need for release. She squeezes then, and he moans, his fingers locking in a death grip on the back of her hand as he uses his outstretched arm to try and keep some of the balance she just robbed him off.

"'Livia, I - " he can't seem to catch his breath, or find his voice over the thundering of his heart in the cage of his chest, "I missed you – I – _so much_"

She nods, because she still can't trust her voice enough to tell him how she's missed him too, without even knowing it. How her life is all but hollow when he's gone, how the universe had taken a part of her with him as it erased him, and refused to give it back without bringing him tow.

Olivia twists her hips to the side and rasps in his ear "roll over," she pleads, and Peter surrenders his position, sinking into the pillows to watch her rise above him, her body still parallel to his, not wanting to surrender an inch of their full-body contact as she rests all her weight on his form, rocking her hips back and forth across his own as he continues to meet her, with his feet firm on the mattress beneath them.

She's radiant above him, outlined in a halo of gold by the light from the window, like it's the sun itself he makes love to, the sun itself writhing on his hips, looking jubilant as she rides him without a hurry, his darker hands a crisp contrast against the pale expanse of her skin as he cups her breasts, helps her hips down with his arm, traces the galaxy of freckles strewn carelessly on her back, his destination unknown and unfathomable in the Cartesian plane of her flesh.

She's pure and unadulterated, boundless, pure overload to his senses as she slips beneath his skin and comes to rest on the home she's made for herself long ago, there in his chest. It doesn't take much more than a few snaps of her hips before he finds himself clenching every muscle against her as she shakes all his structures to dust, like a forest consumed by the fire of her single, most powerful spark. He comes.

She doesn't relent atop him, until he's lying limp beneath her, his body unstrung and breathless within her grasp. Only then does Olivia let go, shaking and gasping with the intensity of her own release, feeling him push her down on his chest and bathe her temples with kisses.

He's right, she thinks, there really is no place like home.


End file.
